Conference Report

Report on the 61st Autumn Meeting 2000 of
The Japan Society of Applied Physics
The 61st Autumn Meeting 2000 of The Japan Society of Applied Phys-

JSAP, mostly from Hokkaido, who made the local arrangements. These low

ics (JSAP) was held for September 3rd - 7th in the city of Sapporo. Sapporo

rates undoubtedly encouraged not only young students and retired scien-is the prefectural capital of Hokkaido and has long been a favorite destina-

tists to attend the meeting, but also scientists who do not work in researchtion of both Japanese and foreign visitors. The city is large enough to ac-and development divisions. The presence of all these participants undoubt-

commodate comfortably the many participants in the Autumn Meeting.

edly stimulated more discussion at the meeting.

Among the historical monuments of the city is a white-painted wooden

The meeting was open internationally as well. The extended abstracts

Clock Tower. The Clock Tower is located close to the center of the city where

showed the titles of papers and the names and affiliations of the authors intourists, as ever, were spending their evenings in pleasant conversation overboth English and Japanese, and some of the abstracts were also written ina drink or taking pictures in the nearby O-Dori Park. O-Dori Park is big and,English. Many more figures with English captions were also to be seen inin early September, with its fountains, was still looking its very best.

the various papers and, in the program book, the titles of papers presented

The Autumn Meeting was held on the campus of Hokkaido Institute ofin English were labeled with a special symbol. Electronic submission ofTechnology in the residential Teine district and was attended by 5,499 applied physicists. Teine is barely a 15-minute train ride from the main railway
station of Sapporo, so the frequent outbound trains in the morning andinbound trains in the late afternoon were invariably full of applied physicists
attending the meeting. Scientific discussions would even start on occasion
between participants who met quite by chance on one of the early morning
trains. Then, having arrived at the venue of the meeting site, they would say
their goodbyes and attend sessions in their own fields of specialization.
The meeting catered for specialists in a wide range of fields, such as
crystal engineering, silicon, thin films and surfaces, quantum electronics,
non-silicon semiconductors, organic molecular electronics and bioelectronics, beam technologies and amorphous materials. In fact there were, alltold, 32 parallel sessions held concurrently.
This year two Schools of “Engineering Education of Globalization Era”

abstracts from the JSAP web page (http://www.jsap.or.jp/) is scheduled toand “Science and Technology for Co-Existence with Nature” and a total of

be available from the Autumn Meeting of 2002. We hope that the elec-twelve lectures were open, free-of-charge, to all participants attending thetronic submission will make it easier for international scientists to submit

meeting. Two Joint Sessions on “Electronic devices based on silicon

their abstracts for presentation at the JSAP meetings.

nanostructures” and “Fundamentals and applications of plasma-enhanced

There were opportunities for scientists from different fields and differ-CVD” attracted 19 and 28 contributed papers and 100 and 200 interdisci-ent organizations to strike up all kinds of interrelationships at the meeting,plinary participants, respectively. Seventeen ‘Topical Symposia’ with no fewerwith participants coming from development, production, universities, cor-than 135 invited papers were also held. The various Poster Sessions also

porate laboratories and public-sector institutions. One university professor

presented researchers with a good opportunity to have one-to-one discus-

would present far more interesting new engineering ideas than many indus-sions with the authors of the papers of most interest to them.

trial researchers, while another researcher engaged in industrial develop-The ‘Regular Sessions’ included a wide and attractive range of contributed oral papers at which postgraduate students presented their own ideas,

ment would describe and explain a beautiful model of a basic reaction process in a truly scientific and academic-like manner.

experiments and models in an effort to win the Young Investigator Award of

One really could not tell the affiliations of individual researchers from

JSAP. Then, a leading young professor who was concurrently the leader of atheir presentations. On the other hand, neither could one deny the relative

medium-size, 5-year exploratory research project in the same field, presented

advantage that affiliations can offer, such as the continuous flow of up-to-

his most recent work, supported by nice experimental evidence, in an excel-date information from a production line or the intellectual stimulus of closelent 10-minute talk. The presentation stimulated much discussion and thecontact with young students. In any event, it is for sure that one could gain

speaker responded clearly and impressively to all the questions that werea great deal by interacting closely with other participants at the meeting. Soraised.

why don’t you attend the next JSAP meeting and present your results andThe meeting was also very accessible. For example, the registration

ideas to the world? Who knows when a member of the audience will ap-fees were set as low as 1000 yen (US$ 9) for students, 3,000 yen (US$27)

proach you to help the future progress of your research in exchange for afor members of JSAP or mutually-contracted societies and 5,000 yen (US$45)

sample!

for non-members. This made the registration fees almost ten times lower

All in all, the 61st Autumn Meeting of JSAP was an important scientificthan the fees usually charged for attending an international conference.

event for enthusiastic and talented researchers in all branches of applied

The lower rates were possible thanks to the courtesy of Hokkaido Institutephysics.

of Technology as well as to the great efforts of the volunteer members of

JSAP International No.3 (January 2001)

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